Employment Update: Agency workers/whistleblowers

A recent EAT case notes that, even though agency workers may not claim unfair dismissal, they may claim as ‘whistleblowers’ if they have suffered a detriment at work.

In Croke v Hydro Aluminium Worcester an engineer who provided his services through the vehicle of a company through a contract with an agency to an end-user, wanted to claim automatic unfair dismissal when he was removed from site allegedly for raising concerns about the end-user’s failure to fulfil a legal obligation to a customer (whistleblowing). Because he was not an employee he could not make an unfair dismissal claim of any kind. However, the EAT said that he could claim as a ‘worker’ to have suffered ‘detriment’ for whistleblowing.